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He's done it again... In response to Mark Levin's Coop-Only Level Bypass Demo, Jason has once again extended the scope of the marathon engine with a cool new tool. The enclosed map shows you how to set up a counter that can count events (number of players appearing, number of secret areas, you name it). The attached readme adds a few extremely innovative potential uses for the technique... if you're making a solo scenario, download this and process it. Use the technique... make Marathon better.

Wow. Mark wanted a way to set up a level such that coop players would be forced to bypass the level, but solo players would have to complete it. He asked for advice on the discussion forums at Marathon Central, but didn't get any answers... When he came up with a solution, it was complicated enough to warrant a writeup, so here it is. It's actually a demo map, showing (and telling, with detailed terminals) exactly how he accomplished the feat. (It's way more complicated than you might think...) The technique's biggest drawback is its resource utilization... 26 platforms used to divert play...

Most of the posts on the news group lately has been with folks needing help with this level concerning Marathon Infinity. Nick Lewis along with some help from Gary Simmons has put together a spoiler guide with text and picts that should help you through the level. This is a bin hexed file that you will need to debinhex and unstuff. Once unstuffing is complete drag the whole folder into your browser and use the "open file in browser" command to view the pages...Open up the "Main" folder first to read the first page... Joe Gardner has updated this to be standalone (that is, it no longer reli...

Wow. I wrote up a small tutorial to help people create terminals with more than one message in them. The day after I released it, Bo Lindberg sent me mail explaining that I'd taken the hard road, and that there was an easier one. (He also sent along a quick demo map.) I planned to add his info to the tutorial, but backburnered it... Two days later, I got mail from Jason Harper, who explained that your options in this field are nearly unlimited, and sent along a demo map, with a promise of a full tutorial to come. Here it is... and if this technique interests you, you need this file. The ex...

A nicely done set of GIFs covering all the solo levels in M1. (Yes, it's been done before... but I don't think any of the originals are in the Archives... and these are pretty complete, with secret areas, save terms, and rechargers.) Worth a look if you're working your way through M1 again (or for the first time...)

A tutorial (with nifty pictures and an example map) showing how to allow multiple messages on a term without tying them to full level goals. That is, if you want to change the message on a term after a particular task is completed, but before all the level tasks are completed, this little guy will show you how. My wife says I wrote it because I was feeling like a cool technique we used a few years ago was unappreciated. I'd rather think it's useful info for the Marathon community.

Detailed information on reactivating (or activating, depending on your view) the unused slots available in the M2/Mi Sounds file. This is a great way to add new sounds, without losing what's already there. The doc mentions that you can see the technique being used in "M1->Mi Hunter conversion patch that this doc is bundled with"-while the patch does have these docs bundled, this version is just the docs. If you want the patch, you need to get it from the Alterations section.

One question that has come up more than most is "How do I get the Marathon CLUT in a form I can use it?" Hamish Sanderson has answered that question, with two files: a Photoshop CLUT file (directly importable), and a PICT containing all the colors in a nice grid, that you can eye-dropper anywhere you need in any painting program. There are also some very useful hints on making Marathon artwork in the readme... if you're doing serious work in Anvil, and having troubles making things look right, get this file. 'Nuff said.

Documentation for the Marathon Map Exporter. Contains info on exporting to various 3D games (including a few upcoming ones), and some discussion of the evolution of 3D games. Worthwhile reading for anyone looking beyond the Marathon universe for first-person-shooter games.

Another one from the master. A tutorial/base for building Marathon sprites... includes three poser models, a detailed readme, and sample output picts. If you're thinking about creating new humanlike sprites, this is a wonderful place to start.

A pretty intriguing idea-all elevations, from -8 WU to 8 WU in 1/8 WU increments have been already specified in the 128 polys already existing in these maps. (There are 5 maps-1 for each texture set.) If you can live with the limitation of 896 polys per level instead of 1024, you can use these as starting points for your own levels, and you'll find you don't need to define elevation levels for each altered poly. Pretty cool... The readme describes a few potential problems (nothing major), and workarounds for these. If you're building levels that don't need really bizarre elevations, these...

Hamish Sanderson might know more about the down-and-dirty details of color editingfor Marathon than anyone outside Bungie. (He has, after all, done 2+ total conversions...) In an effort to find some external value in the enormous amount of work he put into this stuff, he decided to write out some helpful hints for those folks interested in shape editing for Marathon. Beginner or expert, you should read this... you'll almost certainly find something useful here. (Heck, it's only 35K. Download it twice!)

Just another mapmakers insight on the ins and outs of using Forge, etc....This was taken off of the alt.games.marathon news group. There were a couple of items that was news to me so I thought it might help other mapmakers out there...

A comprehensive tutorial concerning many of the "alternate methods" of travel in Marathon. Some of this is very good, and I strongly suggest you download it, if for no other reason then for the films. Some of these give you a detailed "visual account" of the methods the author is trying to explain.

This is nothing more then a text file that I picked up on AGM. It was a response from James Hastings Trew to a post asking about the animation of scenery with Norton Disk Editor. I snagged it and decided that if anyone was interested they could grab it too.